


Make Jazz Not War: Interlude

by 12drakon



Series: Make Jazz Not War [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Multi, Psychological Torture, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-25 02:19:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4942954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/12drakon/pseuds/12drakon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These are pieces for a story I am writing: two 500-word scenes written for October 2016 challenge, and ten one-sentence stories. Cruelties happen to Soundwave. Be warned.</p>
<p>Update: the story is done. Some of its events are different from this Interlude. That makes the Interlude a separate continuity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Icy Corridor

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [12drakon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/12drakon/pseuds/12drakon) in the [TF_Flash_Challenge](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/TF_Flash_Challenge) collection. 



> Big thanks to [SunnySidesofBlue](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SunnySidesofBlue/pseuds/SunnySidesofBlue/works) for beta reading and brainstorming the upcoming story where these and other horrible things happen to Soundwave. Big thanks to [DarthKrande](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthKrande/pseuds/DarthKrande/works), [FHC_Lynn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/FHC_Lynn/pseuds/FHC_Lynn), [Rizobact](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Rizobact/pseuds/Rizobact/works), and [ultharkitty](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ultharkitty/pseuds/ultharkitty) for beta and discussions.

_This: not like that._

Landing felt like his left knee was shot again. Soundwave was ready: vocalizer disabled, struts locked to keep the wounded leg straight, limping to the bridge without the mercy of a pause. Each step sent cold fire up his left side. He couldn’t afford tardiness: his status was due for review.

Muddled thinking hurt. Customized data protocols; processing subroutines perfected over millennia; his unique telepathic suit - all was riddled with error messages, shaky logic bridges, and undiagnosable failures. His cozy mental shelter from the unloving universe had been wrecked.

_This: not like that._

Out-Of-Tune: the archaic glyph designating his new rank had puzzled Soundwave when Megatron had announced his punishment. Now he understood.

Soundwave deleted the glitchy logic thread that claimed Megatron was responsible. Lord Megatron had been merciful! He hadn’t executed Soundwave on the spot for treason over Jazz’s _convincing_ film, each piece of it authenticated as coming from the telepath’s own security cameras. Soundwave’s mind _could not_ blame Jazz, brandishing data from his emotional matrix (irrelevant!), and concluding that Jazz would never...

So Soundwave blamed his misery on the mundane physical features of his Out-Of-Tune rank. Low fuel, frame made of aches, insufficient defragmentation. Cold.

Soundwave recalled Jazz’s tremors. Back then, he’d thought Jazz shook from fear and possibly-probably-likely (he’d convinced himself with crumbles of evidence that must have been echoes of his own telepathic projections) from _desire_. At work, Soundwave had watched security camera feeds: the gorgeous saboteur stowed in his quarters, shackled without any chance to escape, trembling _possibly_ from thoughts about him, Soundwave!

The telepath shivered, imagining the ridiculous: every electron in his body as sluggish at spreading energy as his processor was at thinking. Here was the simple truth of the matter. Jazz had not been trembling from fearful awe or lust: his underfueled, sleep-deprived, hurt frame had been malfunctioning.

This was Soundwave’s frame now: malfunctioning, glitching, reporting shards of asteroid ice instead of the clammy tepid air of their underwater base.

Jazz had never asked for relief; Soundwave would not beg anybod…

NO! _This was not like that!_ Jazz had been an enemy prisoner, an unrepentant Autobot deserving torture and execution for his war crimes - instead, granted gentle treatment by Soundwave, but resisting every effort to _reform_ him through care. This couldn’t be like that. Soundwave was a loyal soldier of his cause, accepting Lord Megatron’s punishment without protest. The Decepticons had been harsh; they’d thought him a traitor. He deserved it: not for treason (he’d never!), but for his feelings toward Jazz. He’d pay for his mistake in full, and then, over long dedicated service, would regain his good standing. When they won the war and apprehended the Autobots, he’d attempt to reform Jazz again. He would…

Soundwave heard Starscream yelling, and realized he’d limped all the way to the bridge. He lifted his hand to ring for entry, then paused to wait out a bout of shivering. This wasn’t apprehension of his status review, no. Just cold.


	2. Humbling River

_Angel, angel, what have I done?_

_I've faced the quakes, the wind, the fire_

_I've conquered country, crown, and throne_

_Why can't I cross this river?_

[Humbling River by Puscifer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3E358n7pcI)

 

The bridge door opened. Soundwave limped to his assigned spot: barely-inside, isolated, unwelcome. Megatron’s chilly gaze trailed down his oil-stained frame, lingering on his charred, bleeding knee. Soundwave’s hope revved up, then guttered as the warlord raised one brow and pointed at the floor.

Starscream marched out, quivering wings held too high.

Soundwave kneeled, his datastream becoming a mandala. Its central stellated octahedron pulsed his nociceptor data in urgent-energon-blue: intensifying pain threatened stasis. In concentric levels, code-filled polygons represented his EM input, temperature, and other senses. The outer level coded acoustics, from the basic (sound pressure and frequency) to the systemic (words and emotions of speech).

His firewalls always filtered sounds thus; other sensory data, as needed. The acoustic level spelled Megatron’s words: “Did you warn the Autobots about the raid, traitor?” with subglyphs for _anger-frustration-disgust_.

Soundwave had few protocols for modding his voice with emotions: why add clutter? His monotone carried zero data about his _pain-devotion-hope_ : “Soundwave…” He deleted, ‘ _would not betray Megatron_ ’, from his vocalizer queue. That was begging - futile, undignified, dangerous - s _till true; for how long?_ He also deleted this thought. “Soundwave: did not warn the enemy. Soundwave: failed to win.”

Megatron grabbed the broadcast microphone. “Decepticons! Today’s raid failed.” The saw edge of code-mandala bit into Soundwave’s processor, coded red for loud, the spectrogram a growl, subglyphs showing _threat-disappointment-mockery_. “We must conserve resources. No rations tonight, washrack heaters off, and half-rations starting tomorrow. Come thank Soundwave in person. You know where to find him. He is Out-Of-Tune for another month.”

Scrapper, the raid’s official leader, wasn’t mentioned. Megatron turned to shivering Soundwave and nodded at the exit - dismissed.

Soundwave limped toward an emptied storage room next door, where he’d stand for half of his recharge cycle, in a pillory made from flimsy rods, rough steelweave mesh, and Megatron’s orders. He obeyed, always obeyed; it rankled that Megatron had added ‘ _Or else!_ ’ by writing his symbionts’ names on the door.

Possibly: a mercy? A reminder about his bonded, to help him endure his punishment? He deleted the glitch-thought, _Megatron: has no mercy_.

One rod hung from the ceiling, holding a hood with three magna-seal openings. When sealed, it covered Soundwave’s head, blinding him, and held his arms high. He had to fasten the other part of the pillory first: a belt at the end of a rod protruding from a wall, with a stiff mesh-strip covering his crotch and keeping his legs uncomfortably spread. It had _hot aft_ graffitied on it, by Swindle or Vortex - he hadn’t seen; both had been behind him, laughing to the hum and smell of a laser scalpel. It’d slid lower, to his legs, next - but the parts under the mesh were off-limits, by Megatron’s orders. It protected Soundwave’s hands and head so that damage wouldn’t stop him from working, and his interface panel, because the Decepticons had standards.

 _Had had standards_ , he couldn’t help thinking as he opened the door. The hood and belt were there; the mesh strip was gone.


	3. Ten One-Sentence Stories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to [Ultharkitty](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ultharkitty/pseuds/ultharkitty/works) for inspirations: this beautiful collection of one-sentence stories about Bruticus http://archiveofourown.org/works/307194/chapters/491356 and this great list of Transformer theme tables with prompts: http://tf-minifics.dreamwidth.org/365.html

Betrayal

At first Soundwave bundled the near-terminal sparkache with the other shades of fear for his cause, his cassettes, and his life, but weeks of assorted suffering had made him a connoisseur, and he now counted this as a separate dread: if Jazz, the Jazz he thought he knew so well, his Jazz, betrayed all compassion, than anyone would, so there was no point to any cause or any life.

 

Sympathy

Breakdown, habitually thankful to the former surveillance officer for keeping the scary ‘Bots away, offered to take him in the mouth when he saw the state of his valve.

 

Dedication

He decided he would choose his breem-long brig visitation with his cassettes over the medbay tonight; knee assembly was a non-essential system, and besides, he might need the medbay worse by the morning.

 

Deliverance

If the misguided Vortex-wannabe kept the shockstick at this setting, Soundwave expected to fall into precious stasis in half a klik.

 

Divided

A drawn-out execution, the last of Soundwave’s resources used up for Megatron’s cause and the amusement of the troops; or the determined stand of the stoic loyal soldier, wronged and then proven innocent - if only he knew which story he was in.

 

Missing

He’d felt the lack of Jazz as soon as the saboteur disappeared under Mirage’s electro-disruptor, and the sensation had been growing since, auto-upgrading its priority through all the levels from mild desire to primary need.

 

Rust

Wouldn’t it be better for his frame and spark; if his, then his team’s; if them, why not every mech, “every sentient being” - like cosmic rust, the longing for rights spread from the basic selfish wish to not be in pain to the highest levels of meta in his processor.

 

Shock

Starscream’s mocking query, whether it felt nice to be universally desirable, reminded Soundwave of how surprised he had been to discover that every Decepticon but one now wanted to force interface with him, when no mech had asked before; every Decepticon but Starscream.

 

Grief

Kneeling by the brig’s entrance with his head down, glad for a reprieve while Megatron viewed an urgent report, Soundwave lifted his gaze just as the warlord was turning away from him, and caught a nanoklik of fleeting, strange, very un-Megatron sorrow.

 

Error

Gentle:harsh != love:rape


End file.
